Furniture slide



April 10, 1934. s; HIGGlNs 1,954,130

FURNITURE SLIDE FiiedAug. 4, 1950 IN V EN TOR.

95 9M may/ 75 v BY 2 Patented Apr. 10, 1934 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFKIEFURNITURE SLIDE Sigfried Higgins, Verona, N. J assignor to BakeliteCorporation, New York, N. Y., a corporation of Delaware This inventionrelates to furniture slides of the type commonly known as domes ofsilence, etc. The function of slides is to reduce the friction so thatarticles of furniture equipped with them can be easily moved. They havelargely displaced casters for this purpose for the reason that casterspresent such a small contact surface that they dent the floor orcovering supporting them; slides have an extended contact surface ofcomparatively large radius whereby the tendency to mar or injure thefloor is minimized.

Furniture slides have been made with sliding surfaces of glass, wood ormetal. The brittleness of glass, the difliculty of securing it and thedangers associated with broken glass practically preclude its use. Woodslides evidently ofier no advantages over the chair or table legs towhich they are attached and they are readily broken. Up to the presentinvention therefore metal has been the only material from which slideshave been manufactured on a commercial scale. But metal slides likewisehave inherent disadvantages. They are readily distorted and their smoothsurface destroyed by hammer blows applied in driving them into place;they quickly rust with the production of surfaces having a relativelyhigh friction coefficientwith respect to as well as a tendency todisfigure the floor; and they are apt to squeak when an article offurniture equipped with them is drawn over a smooth surface.

The efficiency of a slide depends on the presence and maintenance of alow coefiicient friction and freedom from noise when in motion over afloor. It is essential to these ends that the surface remain in a smoothcondition and free from marks of distortion. A low manufacturing costand ease of application are further practical requirements of a slidestructure.

I have found that these and other objects are attained to a surprisingextent by the use of compositions entirely unrelated to metal andhitherto proposed materials. These compositions are those that include afibrous filler bonded by a resinoid, that is, a resin-like syntheticsubstance characterized by a transformation from an initial fusible andsoluble or reactive condition to an infusible insoluble condition by theaction of heat; preferably the resinoid is of the type obtained byreacting phenol or phenolic body with a methylene-containing agent suchas formaldehyde.

The binder can be incorporated with the fibrous filler in various ways.For example the filler can be wood flour, cotton fibers, etc. and

these thoroughly mixed and impregnated by rolling with the resinoid thatis in a powdered form or by applying a solution of the resinoid to thefiller and then removing the solvent; the compositions so obtained canbe molded to the desired form under heat and pressure in accordance withknown practice. Slides made of such a composition, particularly with awood flour filler, however, generally require a thickness that isunsightly and objectionable in order to impart the strength necessaryfor withstanding shock or impact.

A preferable mode of manufacturing slides that I have found is the useof compositions in the form of sheets or laminations which aresuperimposed to the desired thickness in a mold and thereupon subjectedto heat and pressure. Slides so made from paper and resinoid sheets canbe made much less than one-half the thickness of those made from theaforementioned wood flour molding compositions for the same degree ofresistance to shock and impact. In the molding operation the laminationslose their identity and a body so made presents a uniform homogeneousappearance in cross section.

The sheet form of composition can be obtained by impregnating paper,cloth, etc. with an alcoholic or other solution of the reactive resinoidand evaporating the solvent. Or the resinoid, either as a powder, or asan alkaline water solution and afterward precipitated, can be mixed withpaper pulp or the like and the mixture then laid in the sheet form andthe water removed.

In these operations care is taken that the resinoid is not undulyadvanced from its initial reactive condition.

In the accompanying drawing:

Fig. 1 is a cross section of a furniture slide made in accordance withmy invention on line 1-1 of Fig. 2;

Fig. 2 is a plan view of the same;

Fig. 3 is a cross section of an assembly of laminations ofresinoid-containing sheets and metal insert prior-to molding into thefinished article; and

Fig. 4 is a plan view of a sheet carrying inserts ready for punching.

In the manufacture of the slide illustrated in the drawing by way of anexemplification of the invention, discs of paper, or cloth, impregnatedor otherwise provided with a resinoid in the reactive condition arestamped or cut out to an appropriate size. A number of discs 10necessary to give the desired thickness of body are placed in a mold andthe insert 11 together with one or 110 more additional covering discs 12are placed on top. The assembly is then subjected to heat and pressurein accordance with the usual practice in the molding art.

' The insert 11 may be given various forms. As shown in Fig. 1, itconsists of a plate 13 with upturned prongs 14.

A preferred method of preparing the discs is to feed one or more stripsor sheets through a. blanking or die press in a continuous manner. Forinstance a sheet or plurality of superposed sheets of suflicient widthto give the number of discs required can be fed into the press and a rowof discs cut at one operation. In this case it is desirable that theinserts be previously placed in position on the sheet or sheets and heldby their prongs inserted therethrough as shown in Fig. 4 so that thediscs out also carry the inserts. These discs can be collected on a beltmoving beneath the dies of the press and then assembled; or the seriesof punches for cutting out a row of discs can be operated in sequenceand a transverse belt provided with pockets or other aligning meansmoved beneath at a speed that will collect the discs in superposedposition as shown in Fig. 3.

The resinoid binder primarily made use of is as before indicated aphenolor a cresol-formaldehyde condensation product. But other resinoidspreferably those suitable for the manufacture of laminated materials canbe substituted.

Securing means of some kind are required for attaching the slides andthe use of moldable compositions in accordance with this inventionoffers advantages over prior known materials in this regard, for metalinserts can be supplied and these can be positioned and secured duringthe molding of the slides. Embedding and maintaining metal in glass isdiflicult on account of the different coefficients of expansion of glassand metal; but metal inserts in a molded phenol resinoid compositionshow no tendency to become loose on account of changes of temperature.

. Furthermore the inserts can be so designed and placed that no metal isexposed when the slides are attached. In addition the diameter of aslide can be made greater than that of the metal insert and consequentlythe slide given an increased bearing surface over that of a chair leg orother article for which it is intended; such an extension of a sheetmetal slide is scarcely feasible as a practical proposition.

Furniture slides made as described above are highly resistant toimpacts, such as hammer blows. Slides so prepared from resinoidimpregnated paper laminations have been found to successfully resistmore than 15,000 blows struck by a one-half pound hammer falling adistance of one foot. Moreover, the slides produce no annoying squeakswhen furniture to which they are attached is drawn over a smooth floorsuch as tile or cement as is often the case with both glass and metalslides.

This application is a continuation in part of my prior applicationSerial No. 48,629 filed August 6,

I claim:

1. Furniture slide comprising in combination a shaped body of fibrouslaminations bonded with a phenolic resinoid, and a metal plateintermediate said laminations, said plate having prongs projectingthrough the laminations on one side thereof and beyond the exterior ofthe body.

2. Furniture slide comprising in combination a shaped body of fibrouslaminations bonded with a phenolic resinoid and a metal insert embeddedbetween said laminations, said insert having attaching means projectingtherefrom and beyond the exterior of said body.

3. Furniture slide comprising a shaped body of fibers and a phenolicresinoid binder, and an insert embedded in said body and havingattaching means integral therewith and projecting therefrom.

4. Furniture slide comprising in combination, a shaped body of fibrouslaminations bonded with a phenolic resinoid and a metal insert embeddedbetween said laminations, said insert having attaching prongs with theirbases embedded in the body and their ends projecting from the exteriorof said body.

5. Furniture slide having a smooth continuous bottom and comprising incombintion a shaped body of fibrous laminations bonded with aheathardened resinoid, and a metal plate intermediate of saidlaminations and embedded in the body, said plate having attaching meansprojecting through the body on one side thereof and beyond the exteriorof the body.

6. Method of making furniture slides containing a metal plate withattaching means embedded in a resinoid body, which comprises assemblinga plate and disks of fiber and reactive resinoid, with one of said disksone side of the plate with the attaching means projecting through it andanother of said discs on the other side of the plate, and hardening theresinoid around the plate.

'7. Method of making furniture slides containing a metal plate withattaching means embedded in a resinoid body, which comprises assemblingthe plate and disks of fiber and reactive resinoid of a size to providedisk margins beyond the edge of the plate, with one of said disks on oneside of the plate with said attaching means projecting through it, andanother of said disks on the other side of the plate, forcing themargins of the disks into contact and hardening the resinoid around theplate.

8. Method of making furniture slides containing a metal plate withattaching means embedded in a resinoid body, which comprises assemblingthe plate and a disk of fiber and reactive resinoid on one side of theplate, adding sufficient resinoid on the" other side of the plate tobond with the resinoid in the disk and embed the plate with saidattaching means projecting from the body, forcing the two portions ofresinoid to unite, and hardening the resinoid.

SIGFRIED HIGGINS.

